Traffic Calming

Across London, 20 mph zones combine a lower speed limit with physical street engineering and camera enforcement to create pockets of safety across the city. According to the British Medical Journal, serious traffic injuries and fatalities have fallen by 46 percent within the zones; 27 fewer Londoners are killed or seriously injured each year because of the zones. Now, street safety advocates are looking to join those neighborhood-sized zones with signage-only 20 mph speed limits on connecting streets.

It's been nearly a year since we first ran Robin Urban Smith's Streetfilm on the Prospect Park West redesign. A lot has happened since then, but the lane is working as well as ever and I can't think of a better way to wrap up this important day for NYC street safety policy than to have another look at this video of DOT's work in action.

Big ideas were in short supply at a workshop held Wednesday night to develop a badly-needed safety plan for Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard. This year alone, three pedestrians have been killed in traffic crashes along the 100-foot wide avenue, but many of the workshop participants seemed focused on making it easier to drive through Central Harlem, not on saving lives. In an area where fewer than a quarter of households even own a car, more voices need to be brought into this discussion.

Last month DOT announced plans for the city's first 20 mph zone, located in the Claremont section of the Bronx. The agency's presentation to the local community board is now online [PDF], so you can see how DOT plans to implement the slow zone strategy in what could be the first of several neighborhoods. The approach is low-cost but should be effective: Every entrance to the area will be marked with a highly visible "gateway" announcing the reduced speed limit, and the neighborhood will be blanketed with regularly-spaced speed humps.

Traffic deaths need to be treated as an ethical imperative to save lives, said representatives from Transportation Alternatives, the Drum Major Institute, and the medical community today at the public release of the new report, "Vision Zero" [PDF].

Two years ago, the Bronx Helpers decided to take action about a dangerous intersection in their neighborhood. The team of middle and high-schoolers, participants in a community service group run by the New Settlement Apartments, routinely crossed the street at 172nd and Townsend. They all could recount traffic crashes they'd seen at the corner, with some cars coming dangerously close to hitting their friends. The intersection sits between two schools, an afterschool program, and the students' homes, but doesn't even have a visible crosswalk, much less a design prioritizing safety.  With another school under construction at Jerome and 172nd, the need for safety is only going to get more urgent.

When DOT presented plans for traffic calming along Long Island City's 44th Drive in March, the department chose to put the four lane street on a road diet, using some of the reallocated space for a painted median. That still left enough space in the extra-wide parking lanes for a bike lane, however, a fact which Queens Community Board 2 pointed out at the time.

Assembly Member Dov Hikind is stooping to a new low, even by Albany's standards, to ensure that traffic keeps on menacing pedestrians to the fullest extent possible on NYC streets.

The speed limit will be reduced from 30 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour in the Claremont neighborhood of the Bronx, Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced today, fulfilling a promise laid out last year in the city's pedestrian safety action plan to pilot a 20 mph zone in one New York City neighborhood. Similar slow speed zones in London have been proven to save lives and prevent injuries.